FIG. 1 shows a typical computer server rack 10 with blade servers 20 disposed therein. FIG. 2 shows a perspective view of an individual blade server 20. As can be seen in FIGS. 1 and 2, the computer servers 20 are thin, and there is very little tolerance between the individual blade servers 20 within the computer server rack 10, as well as between the blade servers and the server rack.
Over time, as the performance of rack mounted computer systems has increased, the amount of heat generated by various computer system components has increased. This, in turn, requires enhanced cooling to maintain required operating temperatures. The most common approach to computer system cooling is the use of fans. However, with the ever-increasing power budget and space constraints of rack mounted computer systems, available cooling solutions are limited. Because space constraints restrict the physical size of fans, a common solution is the use of fans with high revolutions per minute (RPM). However, high RPM fans significantly increase the amount of vibration generated throughout the computer system.
Because of these height constraints and, accordingly, the fact that there is little or no clearance between the fan and the server enclosure, vibration generated by the fan is transferred through the support structure to other components within the computer system. The generated vibration transferred throughout the computer system can negatively impact the performance of the other components. For example, Hard Disk Drives (HDD) also present in the computer system may be highly sensitive to vibrations and, thus, the performance thereof can be degraded by the transferred vibration from the fan. The problem has been compounded by the increasing density of HDDs, because the HDDs' sensitivity to vibration is also increased.
One way to alleviate the vibration issue would be to mechanically dampen the HDDs. However, the drive brackets are designed to be easily removable, and thus, increased tolerance would be necessary to allow for easy removal and insertion of the HDD brackets from the server rack. Further, increasing the tolerance would allow for increased vibration of the HDDs with respect to the system. This invariably results in throughput degradation of the HDDs. More aggressive forms of damping, in addition to increased cost and complexities of implementation, may interfere with the insertion and removal of the HDD modules from the disk cage.